Helping Your Child with Transitions

Transitions are tricky for any child. Simply going from a sleeping state to a wakeful state can take a long 20 minutes, sometimes more. During the school and work week, which is fraught with transition after transition, it may seem at times as if your child feels put upon more often than not. It may appear that he or she is sad more often, even depressed.

For many children, things just move too quickly. They have a different sense of time than we do, or they have the real sense of timelessness that we have spent our lifetimes desensitizing ourselves to, and for them, it often feels that just as they’ve gotten involved in one thing, they’re being asked to drop it and get involved in something completely different.

This Article

In school settings, teachers work on transitions all throughout the day with kindergarteners and first and second graders. “Get ready to stop working” and “Get ready to line up” are common phrases. We want to give young children a few minutes’ warning about what may be coming next.

Some children experience even more dramatic transitions, like going from one parent’s home to another, even across the country. My sons see their father in Los Angeles for two weeks during the summer and often have difficulty with transitioning back into our routine at home. They’d just begun to get accustomed to his routine and then all of sudden, their time with him is done and they feel like they're left without anything solid to hold onto.

One thing that helps with transitions is talking about them. Even though, of course, you don’t want to create unnecessary anxiety or tension with your children, just knowing they are struggling with a transition can help you determine what to talk about. Depending on the age and developmental level of your child, you can tailor your conversational style to best meet their needs. Discussing some of their fears if they are able to, talking about their feelings and letting them know what to expect are all helpful.

This Comment

It seems this should be common sense for us, but yet, we take for granted at times that kids operate on a different timeline than we do as parents. It helps to remind us that we need to be sensitive to their perception.
Good article, Aimee.

We value and respect our HERWriters' experiences, but everyone is different. Many of our writers are speaking from personal experience, and what's worked for them may not work for you. Their articles are not a substitute for medical advice, although we hope you can gain knowledge from their insight.